My story began when I first got my period age 11. I was always in pain, missing school, etc. I was taken to the doctor who told me this was part of life.
Endometriosis is..
While I can’t speak highly enough of the hospital staff that I encountered (surgeons, nurses and all staff alike), I could see myself slipping down their list of priorities once I was not in immediate need of attention.
I would love to have another child but unfortunately, I don’t see it happening again without more surgery, and I’m not in a position to travel to a country that recognises the disease. As a woman I feel constantly let down by this country.
Many people fly to access excision surgeons outside of Ireland. Here are some useful tips to help you manage your flight.
If I could get any point across, it would be to be aware of what is normal and not. If your periods are excessively heavy, or if the pain is interfering with your daily life, you should get it checked out.
My surgery in Birmingham was life-changing. I finally got my endometriosis diagnosis after ten years of suffering, but it came at a great cost both financially and emotionally. Recovering so far away from home and not having my family around me was tough.
My pain started just after I hit puberty. I would cry with pains that would radiate down my legs, back and into my stomach; pain that would attack out of nowhere during school, the middle of the night, at a friend’s house, etc. At this time I was told a number of things were causing this but never connected it to endometriosis.
My hope for women battling with Endometriosis is that they are listened to, and that those listening really hear the suffering and pain that these women are describing. We are not women looking for attention, we are not women behaving like drama queens and we are certainly not women with pain that is in our heads.
I am one of the lucky ones…well at least that if I have endometriosis at all as I am, as yet, undiagnosed.. when I say I am lucky I mean that I got my period aged 11 and had them perfectly normally like clockwork every 28 days aside from one random agonising one age 24 that had me rolling around in pain.
I want to share my experiences with the wonderful Prof Marc Possover in Zurich and Peter Barton-Smith in London. They have changed my life! I live in the West of Ireland and was diagnosed by laparoscopy with mild/moderate endometriosis at the age of 22, 8 years after the onset of my cyclical, severe pelvic pain. At the time, I was totally immobilised by period pains for a few days each month. Over the years, things worsened and I had many interventions to help with my pelvic pain, but there was never much endometriosis to be found and I never had…
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